The city shrank behind him, swallowed by the haze and the distance.
He was out. He had made it.
Reidar didn't look back. He kept the raven flying low, skimming the rough area of the badlands. The fear of being caught began to recede but was actually replaced by the more persistent anxiety of being stranded.
He had escaped the Ignis and the flying monster, but he was still on an alien planet, and his only way home was a woman who wanted him dead.
If he didn't reach her fast, she might complete the portal and leave him stranded on this planet.
<And if she leaves, I'm stuck here forever.>
Reidar looked down at the barren landscape below, noticing that the badlands stretched in every direction with no trees, no water, and no signs of life—just ash and stone and the plumes of smoke rising from fissures in the ground.
<Back to this hellhole.>
He had put about twenty miles between himself and the ruined city.
The badlands weren't safe, but they were safer than the city. Out here, the monsters were scattered and easier to avoid. The Ignis were trapped in the ruins, fighting over territory and food, and the flying monster had retreated to hunt somewhere else.
Reidar checked his mana reserves, noting that he had spent most of it during the escape by summoning wave after wave of creatures to slow down the Ignis. His reserves were low, but not dangerously so, which meant he could still fight if he needed to, though he'd rather avoid it.
Reidar guided the raven to a flat stretch of ground near a rock spire that offered some shelter from the wind. He landed and dismissed the mount.
He reached into his inventory and pulled out the map and laid it flat on a rock, weighing down the corners with smaller stones.
Three locations were marked, each with names the System had translated for him.
Three cities were marked, each with a name the System translated into something he could barely pronounce. Vor'kthia Industrial Nexus. Zhen'daar Administrative Spire. Kael'seth Research Sanctum. He traced the routes with his finger. All three were within a hundred miles of his current position.
Vor'kthia Industrial Nexus. That was likely another factory city, maybe bigger than the one he'd just fled. If it was anything like the first, it would be picked clean and swarming with Ignis.
Mara might have gone there first, but if she was smart, she would have realized the same thing he had: worker districts didn't hold the high-grade materials needed.
Zhen'daar Administrative Spire. This sounded like the center of government. That meant archives, maybe secure vaults. It also meant it was a high-value target that would have been looted early during whatever catastrophe hit this world. Still, the chance of finding refined metals or intact magical components was higher there than in a factory.
Kael'seth Research Sanctum. The name was the most promising. A research facility would have laboratories, testing grounds, and prototypes. If any place on this map held the catalysts and conductors needed to stabilize a world-opening portal, it was there.
Mara saw the same map. She'd left it behind in the warehouse because that Ignis had attacked her, but she knew about these places too. She'd go to one of them next, looking for materials to build her portal. The question was which one.
Reidar studied the symbols. The Industrial Nexus was closest, maybe thirty miles northeast. The Administrative Spire was farther east, and the Research Sanctum was the farthest, almost due north.
Mara was smart, which meant she would have read the map and come to the same conclusions he had. She wouldn't waste time on another industrial graveyard, and while the administrative spire was a possibility, the research sanctum was the obvious choice; it was her best shot, and therefore, it was now his.
Mara needed materials to complete the portal. The magic circle she was trying to build required specific components, things that could only be found in the ruins of the old cities. If she couldn't find them in one location, she'd move to the next.
<But which one?>
He folded the map. The distances were impossible to judge without scale, but the three sites formed a rough triangle on the map, with the First City he'd just left at one corner.
He guessed each was at least a hundred miles apart, maybe more. Traveling that far on foot or even by raven across hostile territory was a massive risk. Every mile was a chance of running into something he couldn't handle.
Mara was instead at level 368. She could short-range teleport and create portal circles, but she couldn't fight the monsters here.
The level gap was too large, and she'd learned that lesson in the warehouse when an Ignis nearly killed her; she'd escaped by teleporting away, but she couldn't keep doing that forever.
This led to the second, more pressing problem: time.
Mara was a mutated human now, free from the System, and Reidar had seen what that meant when he saw Jorik—pointed ears and pale skin that spoke of something no longer entirely human.
The mutation changed their bodies, making them better at absorbing ambient mana. On Earth, that was a slow process, but here, where the air was thick with the ethereal energy, the mutation would speed up; Mara would get stronger just by breathing, which meant that every hour she spent on this planet, she was sucking in more mana, converting it, and becoming more dangerous.
If Mara stayed here for weeks or months, bathing in the dense mana, she could get stronger than him. She might develop new skills.
The only thing holding her back was the same thing holding him back: the local monsters. She was still weaker than the weakest Ignis he'd seen. So she was stuck, just like him.
<But she's probably stronger now than when I last saw her.>
If Reidar didn't reach her soon, she might become too powerful for him to stop, growing stronger with each passing moment as she absorbed the ambient mana saturating this world.
He had to reach her before she found what she needed and opened a portal back to Earth or wherever she planned to go. If she became strong enough to kill an Ignis on her own, the entire equation changed dramatically in her favor.
She could harvest the catalysts herself without needing to scavenge from corpses, build her portal at her leisure without the constant threat of being hunted, and leave him behind to rot on this desolate planet with no way home.
<But she's still weaker than me. For now.>
Reidar rubbed his eyes, feeling the coarse grit of ash under his fingertips. He was exhausted—bone-deep tired in a way that went beyond physical fatigue.
He had spent weeks on this forsaken planet, running from one threat to another, fighting for his life against monsters that shouldn't exist, and hiding in whatever shelter he could find with only the briefest moments of rest before being forced to move again.
His body was protesting, his mind was foggy, and his reflexes had started to betray him. Back in the city, his reactions had been slow, his decision-making sluggish, and he'd made several mistakes that had nearly gotten him trapped and cornered by the Ignis.
He pulled up his system interface and checked his status. His level was still 464, unchanged since the escape. His mana reserves were at forty percent, recovering slowly thanks to his passive regeneration and the Shadow Sovereigns he'd summoned earlier. His health was full, and his stamina was stable.
<I'm in decent shape. But I need to rest soon.>
Pushing forward now, in the dark and exhausted, with no immediate trail to follow, would be another mistake. The flying monster was still out there, and the Ignis pack might have given up the chase, but other things lived in the cracks of this world; traveling at night, with limited visibility and depleted focus, was suicide.
The logical move was to stop. He needed to restore his ability to think clearly and react. He needed proper rest.
<I can't keep going like this. I'll make a mistake, and then I'll die. Besides, I've had enough jump scares for a lifetime today. I need to sleep.>
He found a crevice in the base of the rock spire, a narrow split that went back about ten feet. It was tight, but it was deep enough to conceal him from anything not specifically looking inside.
He summoned a single Vorathid Sky-Hunter and posted it on the spire's peak above him. He then summoned the Shadow Sovereigns and stationed them at the mouth of the crevice.
He took a ration bar and a canteen of summoned water from his inventory. He ate and drank, but his mind was already shutting down. The adrenaline was gone, leaving only the hollow ache of exhaustion.
He didn't allow himself to think about Jake and Lena, about Kingsgate, or about Martha and Marcus. Those thoughts were a spiral he couldn't afford right now.
He lay back on the cold stone, using his pack as a thin pillow. He kept his armor on. In the crevice's dark, staring up at the slit of hazy, starless sky, he issued his last commands to his summons.
To protect him and warn him if something got too close.
As he lay on the floor, the exhaustion hit him all at once. Reidar's muscles went slack, and his thoughts started to blur.